1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a switch for electric equipment, a piece of electric equipment and an electric equipment manufacturing apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
Apparatus for using a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), a video cassette recorder, game equipment and other pieces of electric equipment each is provided with a disk insertion slot and a switch for electric equipment arranged on the operation panel side of the equipment main body.
Tact switches are known and used for electric equipments. A tact switch includes an operation button having a circular press facet arranged at the operation panel of the equipment main body and a switch body that comes into contact with the press facet of the operation button when the press facet is depressed.
Known tact switches include those having an operation button that can be depressed selectively at a plurality of different positions located oppositely relative to the center of the front press facet so that, when one of the plurality of depressible positions is depressed, the corresponding one of a plurality of switch bodies comes into contact with the operation button.
As prior art, there is a known tact switch that has a plurality of switch bodies arranged along a flat electric base board and a front press facet of an operation button arranged in parallel with the plane of arrangement of the switch bodies (see, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-143557, FIG. 11).
Normally, each piece of electric equipment is provided with a flat low-profile casing. The bottom side of the casing operates as support surface and the vertical front side of the flat low-profile casing operates as an operation panel. The operation panel is perpendicular to the support surface of the equipment and a tact switch is fitted to the electric equipment in such a way that its front press facet runs in parallel with the operation panel.
Recently, the casing of electric equipment is often required to show a low-profile (a front side having a reduced height). As a matter of course, the operation panel of the equipment is lowered as the height of the front side of the casing is reduced. As a result, the operation button is required to be small in size.
However, in the case of a tact switch, the operation button of which has a plurality of depressible positions, the user is forced to handle the operation button with difficulty when the size of the press facet of the operation button is reduced. In other words, there is a limit for downsizing the operation button.